11 July 2006
A top Bahraini tourism executive has told an assembled audience of business leaders that Bahrain is severely lacking in the infrastructure necessary to become a first class tourist destination.
Abdulnabi Daylami, CEO of Bahrain Tourism Company, told a high-profile gathering at the monthly meeting of the Bahrain Businessmen's Association that large-scale investment in a more diverse set of projects was crucial if the Kingdom was to attract the GCC tourists so important to the local economy.
Speaking after his address to an audience which included Hiroyuki Wada, First Secretary from the Embassy of Japan, Daylami told Bahrain Tribune: "I spoke about tourism and the obstacles we have here and I mainly said that the infrastructure is not up to expectation.
"I criticised use of the word 'tourism'. I said Bahrain does not have tourism, it only has hotels and catering."
He said that the country was deficient in many of the features which are important to potential visitors.
He explained: "We do not have the parks. We do not have the beaches. We do not have the infrastructure to offer GCC tourists what they want - for example somewhere to take their families."
Daylami also stressed that the high volume of business travellers who visit Bahrain could be persuaded to extend their stay if Bahrain boasted a greater number of attractions.
He said: "We need to get these people to stay longer, to add nights to their stay."
Another obstacle, according to Daylami, is that when hotels try to show initiative by offering new events such as musical theatre their efforts are often hamstrung by inflexible licensing regulations.
The answer to the problem of the threadbare infrastructure, he explained, was to invest in projects which are attractive to travellers in the GCC market.
He concluded: "I called for local investors to invest in these projects which would help build tourist infrastructure."
A top Bahraini tourism executive has told an assembled audience of business leaders that Bahrain is severely lacking in the infrastructure necessary to become a first class tourist destination.
Abdulnabi Daylami, CEO of Bahrain Tourism Company, told a high-profile gathering at the monthly meeting of the Bahrain Businessmen's Association that large-scale investment in a more diverse set of projects was crucial if the Kingdom was to attract the GCC tourists so important to the local economy.
Speaking after his address to an audience which included Hiroyuki Wada, First Secretary from the Embassy of Japan, Daylami told Bahrain Tribune: "I spoke about tourism and the obstacles we have here and I mainly said that the infrastructure is not up to expectation.
"I criticised use of the word 'tourism'. I said Bahrain does not have tourism, it only has hotels and catering."
He said that the country was deficient in many of the features which are important to potential visitors.
He explained: "We do not have the parks. We do not have the beaches. We do not have the infrastructure to offer GCC tourists what they want - for example somewhere to take their families."
Daylami also stressed that the high volume of business travellers who visit Bahrain could be persuaded to extend their stay if Bahrain boasted a greater number of attractions.
He said: "We need to get these people to stay longer, to add nights to their stay."
Another obstacle, according to Daylami, is that when hotels try to show initiative by offering new events such as musical theatre their efforts are often hamstrung by inflexible licensing regulations.
The answer to the problem of the threadbare infrastructure, he explained, was to invest in projects which are attractive to travellers in the GCC market.
He concluded: "I called for local investors to invest in these projects which would help build tourist infrastructure."
By Mark Summers Business Reporter
© Bahrain Tribune 2006
